The November Man (15 page)

D
enisov learned enough in three days to understand the direction of things. He merely didn’t understand the sources.

He had tapped the informal network of private intelligence operatives (called “casuals” and “contractors” in some jargon); he had caught the thrust of Alexa’s trail. It was dangerous for Alexa. She was “going into black” in the citadel of the West to kill an American agent. “Going into black” was to go illegal, off the charts, into enemy lands, into illegal jobs that no one would vouch for.

Why was it so obvious?

Denisov was a careful man and he was appalled at the carelessness of the information sources he tapped. Everyone seemed to know about Alexa’s mission; everyone seemed to agree that it was going to be very dangerous. It was as though information were suddenly free and intelligence had become a sieve. There was so much that so many knew that it was like a story agreed upon before the telling by both sides.

The last source had been Griegel, the “wise old man
of Berlin.” Griegel was—How could you explain him? He was the go-between and lived quite undisturbed in his three rooms on the top floor of an ornate old residence off the Unter den Linden. He was an old man who had always been old, who smoked American Chesterfield cigarettes in a long black holder.

Griegel was alone now. His wife had died two years ago, about the time that Denisov had finally met him through Krueger in Zurich.

Griegel was one of the honest go-betweens. What information he had was given to him. He offered no bona fides because none could be given. He fulfilled the role of an international neighborhood gossip. He lived undisturbed 1.4 miles east of the Berlin Wall at the point of the Soviet War Memorial.

“Birds of peace,” said Griegel, pointing with his cigarette holder at the pigeons wheeling in the bright spring air. “East or West. All the same to them.”

The trite sentiment was expected. Griegel was a man who liked company. He held on to the company of others by delaying the inevitable moment when he would have to reveal all of substance that he knew. Like many gossips, the facts were less important than the talk; he kept stoking the talk with prods of unimportant comments.

The two men sat at a table by the balcony and looked down. At the corner of the narrow street, they could see a few of the famous linden trees for which the great Berlin street is named.

Denisov said nothing. He watched the street.

“The next summit meeting is to be in Berlin,” Griegel said. He had the sharp accents of the Berliner and Denisov raised his hand in protest—his German was too slow.

“Would you prefer English then? Or Russian?” Griegel smiled. “Unfortunately, I cannot speak Russian very well. This makes it difficult when they want to tell me things.” And he smiled. He had the wizened flat German eyes of the kind seen on some old men, with Oriental corners and merriment that is kin to mischief.

“I came to see you,” Denisov began because the old man would not start the conversation. “I am not concerned with the summit meeting. I am concerned with my own business.”

“And what is your business now?”

“I am in trade. Commercial trade.”

“Ah,” Griegel said. He smiled at the shadows on the street. “What do you sell?”

“The things that people need,” Denisov said.

“Ah,” Griegel said again, catching his breath and bobbing his head as though he understood.

“Why does the community speak so openly of intelligence? Of exchanges?” Denisov began again.

“The community,” Griegel said. “The community lives on gossip.”

“And you are the greatest gossip of all,” Denisov said.

Griegel cackled. He ended his laughter with a fit of coughing and placed a new Chesterfield cigarette in his holder.

“The summit interests me,” Griegel said. “It is such an important thing. And to have it here, in Berlin. There is talk these days about the summit and the air is filled with hope.” He puffed the cigarette. “Hope like pigeons who are the symbols of peace, flying freely over poor Berlin. Holy doves.”

Denisov frowned. “Flying rats,” he said. He would prefer the conversation to end within a week or two. He shifted his bulk uncomfortably at the table. Even the
saintly eyes seemed irritated. He had done his work in Europe, tapping into old sources and networks, feeling his way around the dark room of espionage without bumping into any unexpected pieces of furniture.

There are rarely facts found in such a search; Denisov had merely discovered a sentiment, a feeling of change to come. Griegel was useful because he was a parrot—he repeated the lies told him exactly as they had been stated in the first place. A useful parrot, used by both sides and by independents—like Denisov.

“How can you say such things about birds? They are God’s creatures, even in this godless state,” Griegel said. He was smiling still. “You are such a cynic, friend. Reality should not cloud your vision.” The smoke drifted out the window. The old man sat in a wooden chair beside a wooden table butted against the iron balustrade that formed a small, crude balcony. He never moved from the chair. The street—narrow and in shadows—was his world. Up and down the street they came to the gossip of Berlin.

The old man sighed. He took the cigarette out of the holder and threw it out the window. He stared at the holder for a moment and then put it down.

“All right,” he said.

Denisov said, “What about Switzerland?”

It was automatic, like pressing the button on a jukebox. Griegel played the record triggered by the words.

“They talk about action in Switzerland,” he said. His eyes glazed over. “Soviet agent, one of the best, goes mad and kills two of her comrades. It was a quarrel, they say. She has fled to the West, they say.”

“She.”

“She,” Griegel said.

Denisov put the money on the table. Not overvalued East German marks but Swiss francs. Hard money. The amount never varied, was never haggled over. The information retrieved from the old man was all alike to him, like so many songs on so many recordings.

“Who controls her?”

Griegel blinked; again, the eyes seemed glassy, as though he were drugged. When he spoke, the voice was automatic: “They say there is an old man in Moscow who is old and diseased and who wishes to live forever. Although, in a way, he is already immortal because his name lives forever.”

“What about him? Is he in control?”

“In control? Who can say about that old man who wants to live forever.” Griegel frowned. The wrong record was chosen. “Who can say.” The frown deepened. “Some say the old man will go.”

Go. Defect.

“Alexa,” Denisov tried. He was operating in darkness. What buttons had to be pushed to retrieve information?

“She went to kill a man in Switzerland and killed her own comrades.” He was silent; it was all.

Denisov was sweating though it was a cool day. The sweat broke on his forehead and beaded and fell down his face.

“November.”

Griegel closed his eyes. The machine of memory whirred. He opened his eyes and saw nothing. “November is dead,” he said.

“November in Switzerland.”

“There is no November. November is dead,” Griegel said.

“Who did Alexa go to kill?”

“Alexa killed two comrades in Switzerland. She went mad.”

Denisov wiped at his face because the sweat stung his eyes. Outside, the rumble of Berlin filled the air. Pigeons fluttered above the low buildings and thought about East and West and where to eat next. The Wall was a good deal safer these days for pigeons because it was difficult to recruit soldiers to man the Wall and some of the watchtowers contained machine guns and cardboard cutouts of soldiers. The pigeons knew these things.

Devereaux had wanted information. Had wanted Denisov—for a considerable price—to tap into the “Community” of shadows that existed in Europe—the soldiers of fortune, the mercenary agents, the contractors and private intelligence sources, the arms dealers who knew many things about many countries. He had tapped, probed, prodded: And all he had was this vague feeling of momentous events yet to come.

“Who is the old man in Moscow?”

Griegel snapped out of the trance. He smiled. “Who can say?”

“Her control?”

“Who can say?”

“Gorki,” Denisov said. The man in control in Resolutions Committee was always code-named Gorki. Was it the same man who had controlled Denisov long ago? But it had to be: He controlled Alexa, he had controlled Denisov when Denisov had been in the trade.

Denisov watched Griegel.

Griegel closed his eyes.

Denisov wiped at his face again.

“Gorki,” Griegel said. And opened his eyes. He smiled at Denisov. “That reminds me of an absurd thing. It is too absurd.”

“What is it?”

“A nutcracker. A wooden nutcracker.”

“A nutcracker?”

Griegel blinked. He was back in the present. “Did you remember the case of the Soviet agent who defected to the West in Italy and then redefected back into the Soviet embassy right in Washington in the United States?” He laughed in a dry voice. “Do you ever wonder that perhaps it is all a great game and that none of the players understands it?”

“What is Nutcracker?” Denisov said. His voice rose. And Griegel went into a trance again and this time, the voice was dull and slow:

“Nutcracker is an operation which involves the suspension of certain long-held beliefs: Nutcracker assumes the truth of the game. The truth of the game, which cannot be admitted, is simple: There are no spies. The game exists for its own sake.”

Griegel shuddered and seemed to fall asleep in the wooden chair. His mouth gaped. His hands were slack on his lap. Was it a trance? Or was it a game played within a game, a little show for Denisov’s money?

Denisov sat still for a long time, trying to catch his breath. His face felt flushed to the touch of his cold hand. He thought of Alexa then and he was almost feverish.

He had known her, of course.

He had slept with her.

They had been under control of Gorki, together, in Finland. She was Gorki’s pet, it was obvious. She deferred
to Gorki when they spoke of the man. Denisov had never been under illusions—about the trade, about Gorki, about the system he served. Denisov had been faithful in his way but he saw the true believer shining in Alexa’s eyes and it had made him wary for a long time. They had business to do in Finland and it was a dirty job and she had been good enough and Denisov had been better. Denisov had shown her certain ways of doing things that had impressed her.

He was not a beautiful man and he was large and his manners were too shy. He was not at all in appearance what he really was, in his heart, in his mind. Alexa had been like the others—like his old wife even, whom he remembered less and less—she had seen only the external Denisov at first, the clumsy and amiable bear. But then, in the business in Finland, when he had been quite ruthless, she had seen the power and sureness in him and she had loved the power of him and he had taken her as simply as a man takes a streetwalker.

He had slept with her. He made love as never before. When it was over, the smell of her filled his memory. Back in Moscow, in the small and noisy flat, he had made love to his old wife after the assignment and he still remembered the smell of Alexa. He had made ferocious love, hard and cruel, demanding. He had moved over his old wife and felt her under him, her big belly and sagging breasts, and with his eyes closed and the smell of Alexa in memory, he was making love to Alexa again in Helsinki, before they had parted. He closed his eyes in Moscow and remembered the smell of Alexa beneath him, the firm, straining belly that pushed against his belly until he had to explode, again and again, into her.

The breasts were firm, and he had felt suspended above Alexa and felt her long, cat’s tongue drag across the flesh of his throat and reach his ear and lick into it like a saucer of milk. His head exploded and this strong woman beneath him—he had been thinking of Alexa—moved and moved and he grasped her buttocks, her back, every beautiful part of her perfect body…

He was sweating in the coolness of morning in the shadowed street in Berlin. He remembered: He had opened his eyes in the darkness when he made love to Alexa and she had been watching him. He was above her and her body was moving beneath him but she was watching him with an apartness that frightened him.

Griegel’s voice intruded.

“No. Nothing,” Denisov replied, though he had not heard what the other man had said. He closed his reverie and looked around him.

“Quite beautiful,” Griegel jeered. The Berliner always attempts humor, even when it is most inappropriate.

“I was thinking about Nutcracker.”

“Ah, she’s cracked a few nuts in her time,” said Griegel. The English pun startled Denisov. It was something he wished he had the skill to say. Even the puns of Gilbert had to be studied and had to be explained for Denisov.

His head filled with music then. He rose.

He nodded in a correct German way at the old man at the table and saw, from his height, the East German agents in the street below. Berlin was not so difficult and neither was Prague; the past that had been an agent named Denisov had been obliterated long since. No one looked for him anymore or even suspected he existed.

The music pounded as he pounded down the stairs, round and round the balconied marble stairs. What was the reason for so much music?

But Griegel had made a pun.

The pun had given him Gilbert and Sullivan’s wonderful tunes.

He saw the players again of the old D’Oyly Carte company before it disbanded in London. He saw them go round and round with the music. He saw the strutting English actors in Japanese costumes and the strains of the opening of
The Mikado.

He was on the street, hurrying along to his car parked illegally at the corner of Unter den Linden. He would be in West Berlin in ten minutes; he could be in Washington in ten hours.